Medicare costs: Blame fee-for-service

The more doctors that treat a patient is not necessarily better. It’s time to change the carrot:

Despite seeing many doctors, few patients get the treatments that are recommended for them, and few have their chronic diseases well-managed. For example, fewer than 30% of people with high blood pressure have it adequately controlled, according to the agency’s most recent analysis of health-care quality. No surprise, really. Fee for service incentives are linked to the number of services doctors provide, not the quality of those services.

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